At the Tower of the Fang where they train future sorcerers, Krylancelo and his foster sister Azalie were both promising students. However, one night during an experiment, Azalie is turned into a monster and flees.
Not wanting to hurt the Tower’s reputation, the elders rush to cover up the incident. Wanting to saving his sister, Krylancelo leaves the Tower to find a way to change her back, taking up the new name of Orphen.
Five years later, he has finally found Azalie, but the Tower of the Fang is making their move as well.
Out of all the late 90’s anime to be remade, I didn’t expect the chuunibyou-maker that is Sorcerous Stabber Orphen, but it works well even if you can still see the age in its storytelling.
Anime Like Sorcerous Stabber Orphen
For Fans of Swords and Sorcery
Record of Grancrest War
After a tragedy that occurred at a wedding between the two nations of Fantasia Union and Factory Alliance, the continent of Atlatan is embroiled in war once again.
In this war, an Alliance mage is rescued by a young warrior named Theo that carries a mysterious crest. His strange crest is able to banish the corrupting chaos which is consuming the countryside, and she finds herself pulled into his epic quest.
Sorcerous Stabber Orphen brought its older style swords and sorcery action focus to the modern anime scene, but Record of Grancrest War is more of a modern example of how anime does swords and sorcery now.
Both Sorcerous Stabber Orphen and Record of Grancrest War are similar in how dedicated they are to building complex magical systems for their world. Furthermore, they also feature main characters with strong magic that is slowly explored over the course of the series.
The biggest difference is the plot. Orphen’s journey is motivated by Azalie while Theo’s journey is peace-motivated, but ultimately unclear in the plot’s overall direction.
Slayers
Lina Inverse is a greedy sorceress that makes a living stealing from bandits. Just when she has a group in her sights, she watches an oblivious swordsman named Gourry Gabriev charge in, thinking she was a damsel in distress.
After beating the bandits, Gourry insists that he escort Lina to a nearby city. Not happy about the idea, she gathers her loot and accepts.
However, on the road, Lina finds a strange magical object in her spoils, and it seems she now has a series of mysterious men pursuing her.
Both Slayers and Sorcerous Stabber Oprhen follow mages that often travel and find themselves caught up in adventures. However, while they are both great anime to watch if you love magic-heavy battles, they are of different tones.
Sorcerous Stabber Orphen is often seriously pursuing plot with moments of levity while Slayers is more frequently silly. Furthermore, the characters in Slayers are all kind of comical even when serious.
Bastard
The kingdom of Metallicana is just the latest kingdom to be imperiled by the Four Lords of Havoc. They seemingly desire only destruction and no power can stand against them.
Desperate to save the kingdom, High Priest Geo reveals that he sealed their once-leader of destruction, the lord Dark Schneider into a boy, who can only be awakened by a ritual performed by his daughter.
Unleashing Dark Schneider is a risk, but his power can stand against this mighty threat.
Both Bastard and Sorcerous Stabber Orphen are older fantasy anime that have modern remakes. However, while those remakes shine up the look, they still both have noticeably older storytelling styles and characters.
Both anime put a large emphasis on magic in a standard swords and sorcery fantasy world. Furthermore, they both follow anti-hero type characters that are overpowered in their magic use and knowledge. However, while Orphen has his moments, Dark Schneider is distinctly more cocky.
While Bastard and Sorcerous Stabber Orphen have a lot in common, Bastard has a lot more graphic ecchi throughout.
Record of Lodoss War
After the last great battle between gods, the land and kingdoms of Lodoss were created.
While they endured years of warfare between the kingdoms, things have finally quieted to peace until an ancient witch begins to stir.
Bent on preserving peace, a party of young champions led by the warrior Parn stand up against the darkness.
Back in the day, Sorcerous Stabber Orphen was a staple in swords and sorcery anime, but there is none more iconic than Record of Lodoss War.
Both stories feature more classic fantasy ideas like elves, dragons, and magic. However, Record of Lodoss War tells a more typical fantasy story then Sorcerous Stabber Orphen that often moves from one arc to the next rather than keeping a linearly focused plot.
The Legend of the Legendary Heroes
Ryner Lute is a talented mage with the power of Alpha Stigma, special eyes that can analyze all types of magic, but are said to bring destruction.
He was once a student in a magic school, but after most of his classmates died in the war, he makes an oath to make the world a more peaceful place.
In an effort to do this, he sets out to find relics from legendary heroes with the help of beautiful swordswoman, Ferris Eris.
Both Sorcerous Stabber Orphen and The Legend of the Legendary Heroes follow mages that are considered overpowered in their world. Ryner is so much so that he is feared, Orphen, however, is considered powerful among the Childman Class, an already powerful group.
While they have different motivators, both anime follow these mages and their companions as they travel to new areas and get caught up in new adventures. While Sorcerous Stabber Orphen has its element of betrayal, The Legend of the Legendary Heroes can be surprisingly brutal with its betrayals.
For Fans of Action-Packed Journeys
Scrapped Princess
Known as the Scrapped Princess, a poison that will destroy the world, Pacifica Casull is hated by the worshipers of the god Mauser.
To avoid being killed, Pacifica and her adopted brother and sister leave her village of Manhurin, looking for a way to avoid the foreseen disaster that will befall the world on her 16th birthday.
What Sorcerous Stabber Orphen does, especially in the beginning, where it is just him and his companions traveling down a road to the eventual plot, is common in older anime. Scrapped Princess employs the same technique, but it doesn’t spend as much time establishing the initial plot as Sorcerous Stabber Orphen does.
Both Sorcerous Stabber Orphen and Scrapped Princess feature a balance between swordplay and magic on a journey to essentially try to save a girl. However, Scrapped Princess has more emphasis on swordplay rather than the sorcery.
These are both older anime, and as such, they share a lot of the same sensibilities. However, Scrapped Princess hasn’t been remade and can be a bit abrasive on the eyes.
Inuyasha
Kagome’s normal life came to an end one day when a demon dragged her down into a well at the shrine where she lived. When she next woke, Kagome finds herself 500 years in the past in Japan’s feudal area, a time in history fraught with both war and demons.
It is there she learns that she is a reincarnation of a priestess tasked with guarding the Shikon Jewel.
With the jewel returned to the world with her, Kagome must fight off the demons that want to gain its power, including Inuyasha, a half-demon that was once a lover of her past self right up until she sealed him to a tree.
Both Inuyasha and Sorcerous Stabber Orphen come from a similar era, and they tell a type of story that was much beloved in that era.
You had a cast of characters with a developing relationships and romance who had an overall goal, but spent much of their time exploring adventures in every new location they visited. They are both very journey-oriented anime with the overall goal often distant and vague.
However, while Orphen has outright magic, inuyasha puts more emphasis on not spell-casting magic, but weapons with magic-like abilities and attributes.
Finally, if you enjoy your main character kind of gruff and grumpy, but with a heart of gold. The titular Orphen and Inuyasha do anti-hero in the most lovable way.
The Twelve Kingdoms
In what started as a normal day as a normal high school student, Nakajima Youko has her reality shattered when a strange man named Keiki appears before her, swearing his allegiance.
When Youko and her friends are attacked by demons, they are pulled into a different world, one she has never known.
Separated from Keiki, Youko and her friends must do whatever they have to in order to survive this strange, harsh place.
Sorcerous Stabber Orphen does a great job at building intrigue on different levels. There are plots and machinations going on in each area he is in, but there is also overall intrigue building at a larger, country-wide scale that is explored.
The Twelve Kingdoms is also great at building levels of intrigue as well. Furthermore, both anime are actually great at building out a vast world that feels unique and alive. There are different religions, governments, facilities, and ideologies everywhere that really make the main character feel like a small character in a large world.
Grimoire of Zero
While witches exist, very little is understood about magic, so their kind is ostracized. Half-beast men like Yohei are also shunned, causing him to make his living as a mercenary and wish he was human.
One day, he meets a witch called Zero who offers to grant the wish to turn him human, but only if he agrees to be her escort.
Both Sorcerous Stabber Orphen and Grimoire of Zero essentially follow mages who kind of messed up, and are attempting to make it right.
In Sorcerous Stabber Orphen, there was that whole Azalie thing. In Grimoire of Zero, Zero let her dangerous book of powerful magic get out into the world. Both anime follow these main characters and their companions as they travel to try and ultimately fix these problems they kind of caused.
Both series have excellent magic action with bits of swordplay, but Grimoire of Zero is prone to more cute moments than Sorcerous Stabber Oprhen.
Kaze no Stigma
Kazuma Yagami is a Fuujitsu user able to control the wind. However, this ability led to banishment from his family home for not being able to control fire.
Years later when he returns home, it leads to conflict, but worse yet, several members of his family have been killed by Fuujitsu. Now, he must discover the true identity of the killer.
For as supposedly rare as Sorcerers are in Sorcerous Stabber Orphen, he sure ends up finding a lot of them. Kaze no Stigma is a little more honest in that sorcerers are separated into families.
Like Orphen is often at odds with the Tower of the Fang, so too is Kazuma at odds with his family. However, Kaze no Stigma isn’t a country-spanning adventure like Sorcerous Stabber Orphen, it is confined to a city. It feels more on the scope of the smaller local intrigue you would see in one of Sorcerous Stabber Orphen’s arcs.
For Fans of Magic Assassins
The World’s Finest Assassin Gets Reincarnated in Another World as an Aristocrat
The greatest assassin on Earth lived only to be a tool by those that wished to wield his mastery. That is, until they decided that he was no longer needed and ended his life.
By the grace of a goddess, this masterful man was reincarnated into a new world where he is asked to kill a hero that will later bring about the end of that world.
Deciding to finally live for himself, this man, now named Lugh Tuatha De, puts his skills as a killer to the test with foes who wield real magic.
Despite The World’s Finest Assassin being an isekai anime, it, like Sorcerous Stabber Orphen, follows a boy that is specifically trained to be an assassin. However, unlike Orphen, he isn’t trained to specifically target mages.
While Orphen doesn’t want to be an assassin, The World’s Finest Assassin leans right on into it. The anime is fully dedicated to him taking on assassination jobs.
Akashic Records of Bastard Magic Instructor
Sistine is a dedicated student at the magical academy where she hones her skills. She eventually hopes to solve the great mystery of the Sky Castle, but when her teacher retires, the replacement, Glenn Radars, turns out to be a lazy bastard.
How is it that this incompetent man was hand-picked as the best magician in the academy?
If Orphen had become an instructor at the Tower of the Fang, it would very likely be a situation like Akashic Records of Bastard Magic Instructor.
Both shows feature wildly strong mages who don’t often use their power because their power is meant to be used as an assassin. They actively try not to be the cold-blooded killer that they were trained to be. However, Glenn indulged his assassin nature in the past more then Krylancelo did.
The main characters really are quite similar in their pasts and present attitude, but Glenn is distinctly more silly and perverted whereas Orphen treats things more seriously.
Assassins Pride
Forced into small encased cities by the lycantheropes, human nobles have the ability to use mana to fight back.
At the age of 13, Melida Angel has yet to manifest her mana. She is introduced to Kufa Vampir who is meant to help her as a tutor. Unfortunately, his secret job is to assassinate her if she proves to not be able to use mana.
While he learns he must kill her, Kufa is struck by her determination and belief in herself. Instead of assassinating her, he decides to help her learn to awaken her mana.
Both Assassins Pride and Sorcerous Stabber Orphen follow a mage that was trained to be an assassin. However, they both decline to assassinate the girl they were told to kill.
While Azalie is frequently somewhat of an antagonist in Sorcerous Stabber Orphen, Melida is more the “standard romantic interest to be protected” type of character.
Whereas Orphen and his purpose and past are straightforward, Assassin’s Pride enjoys slowly unveiling the more special aspects of its characters.
Do you have more anime recommendations like Sorcerous Stabber Orphen? Let fans know in the comments section below.
